Concussions are a common occurrence in sports. High school and professional athletes suffer thousands of concussion every year; particularly in American football and ice hockey. Concussions do not always involve being “knocked out,” or a loss of consciousness. A concussion occurs when an individual's mental status changes as a result of trauma (usually a blow to the head). Sports-related concussions often result in mental and physical symptoms (e.g., inability to concentrate, forgetfulness, headache, fatigue; dizziness, etc.). For many athletes, the symptoms disappear after about 10 days, and they typically do not last more than several months. In some cases, though, concussions lead to persistent complaints of physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral symptoms, sometimes referred to as post-concussion syndrome. In some cases, when repeated concussions occur over a brief interval, athletes may suffer from secondary impact syndrome, a pathological response of the brain that can be life-threatening if not treated promptly.
During the past decade or so the issue of concussions in sports has garnered worldwide attention. In particular; publicity relating to sports-related concussions and the severe long-term health impact of concussions has exploded. It has long been known that concussions can lead to permanent loss of higher level mental processes. Scientists have debated for centuries whether concussions involve structural damage to brain tissue, or whether physiological changes that merely impair the way brain cells function explain this loss. More recently; researchers have linked areas of brain injury to specific altered mental processes caused by concussions.
As a result, there has been a concerted effort throughout the sports industry to develop equipment to better protect athletes from suffering concussions while playing sports—particularly, football. In fact; the National Football League (NFL) has recently announced that it will spend upwards of $100 million to advance concussion research, with a significant portion of that money going toward continuing efforts to develop a safer helmet. Unfortunately, doctors have said, so far, helmets have done little to reduce concussions and the long-term effects of repeated head trauma. In its earliest days, the purpose of the football helmet was to prevent the sport's scariest; most visible injuries; grisly skull fractures and broken necks. Today's safety standards for helmets were developed in response to high number of fatalities in 1968, when 36 players were killed across all levels of the sport. But, in recent years; a growing body of evidence has shown that these helmets still aren't nearly enough to prevent dangerous head injuries. The concussion-proof helmet has become the holy grail of helmet design. But, researchers are beginning to wonder whether such a thing really exists.
A concussion can happen without actually hitting your head. If you can get a concussion without actually hitting your head, then a helmet can't possibly prevent every concussion that can happen. In fact, over the past couple of decades there has been a proliferation of inventions specifically focused on finding a particular helmet design that will adequately prevent the high occurrence of sports-related concussions. Unfortunately, for the most part, the focus of such research into new concussion-eliminating helmet designs has been of little or no avail. Primarily, this is due to the fact that concussions are not simply caused by, for example, head-to-head or head-to-ground impact. Concussions occur as the result of any impact that causes the head and brain to move rapidly back and forth in a whiplash-like fashion. The sudden movement causes the brain to bounce or twist around inside the skull, stretching and damaging the delicate cells and structures inside of the brain.
Accordingly, what is needed is a means of reducing such whiplash-like movement—not just a reconfigured helmet design that better absorbs the impact of a sudden blow to the head. It would be highly-desirable to provide some type of mechanism that could be employed, in conjunction with, for example, an impact-dampening helmet design, which would function to further minimize the primary cause of sports concussions (i.e. whiplash-type movement of the head) and which could be easily integrated with a conventional helmet design, or a slightly-modified helmet design, while limiting additional physical constraints on an athlete during play (e.g. without impeding the ability of a player to rotate his or her head). That is, a mechanism that could be employed by, for example, a football player; but would not introduce new physical limitations significantly impeding the player's ability to perform.